The First Blog Supporting John Kerry Before the 2004 Election.
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Monday, November 22, 2004

Another site from former Kerry bloggers, including blogmaster Dick Bell has opened:

Welcome to the Democracy Cell Project

Dear Friends,

Welcome to the opening of the Democracy Cell Project, a new blog and website intended to encourage people across this country to use all the tools at our disposal, online and off, to build the institutions from the grassroots up that we must have to take our country back from the radical forces that have seized power in Washington. The image of “democracy cells” is an image for us of any group of people who come together to work for a better country, whether they’re members of an existing organization or are just taking the first steps in founding something entirely new.

The people who have come together to share this site with you have been through a unique experience in American politics: they were moderators and volunteers of John Kerry’s blog, the first presidential general election campaign blog that was open for comment from the public (the Bush campaign blog was closed to the public). I was the blogmaster for the Kerry blog, and together the moderators and I plunged headfirst into a sea of comments, complaints, and suggestions, seeing over and over again how blog-mediated interactions transformed people from a state of being simply curious to a state of deepening activism, from working in their local communities, to donating funds, and to traveling thousands of miles to volunteer for days or weeks in other states.

1 Comments:

Welcome to the opening of the Democracy Cell Project, a new blog and website intended to encourage people across this country to use all the tools at our disposal, online and off, to build the institutions from the grassroots up that we must have to take our country back from the radical forces that have seized power in Washington. The image of “democracy cells” is an image for us of any group of people who come together to work for a better country, whether they’re members of an existing organization or are just taking the first steps in founding something entirely new.

The people who have come together to share this site with you have been through a unique experience in American politics: they were moderators and volunteers of John Kerry’s blog, the first presidential general election campaign blog that was open for comment from the public (the Bush campaign blog was closed to the public). I was the blogmaster for the Kerry blog, and together the moderators and I plunged headfirst into a sea of comments, complaints, and suggestions, seeing over and over again how blog-mediated interactions transformed people from a state of being simply curious to a state of deepening activism, from working in their local communities, to donating funds, and to traveling thousands of miles to volunteer for days or weeks in other states.

But the visitors to the blog were not the only ones who were transformed by their experiences. The moderators and I also learned from the thousands of hours that we spent online. We learned about the hopes and fears of visitors, and formed a tight, energetic community through the Instant Messaging area where the moderators met to manage the blog together.

We did spend a lot of time talking with people about the intricacies of issues. But as the campaign progressed, our own interests converged more and more on the question of HOW could we use these powerful online tools to help people do a better job of fighting for what they wanted, whatever it was, and wherever they were. We had hoped to be working on these problems under a Kerry presidency. But within days of the election, we agreed that we wanted to keep fighting, and to take what we had learned to others on the net.

This blog is the first fruit of this commitment, but far from the last. As traffic builds, we will build an online organizer’s Tool Kit, a section on Best Practices, live discussions with successful organizers and key figures in the political activism and communications arenas, and a place to organize and discuss your own "democracy cell" experience. Our focus is on building a site to provide access to resources that will help people climb the organizing learning curve faster. And all along the way, we will attend to the necessity for integrating online efforts with people on the ground, in the field.

We are especially interested in nurturing tools that allow cells to interact laterally. Howard Dean’s campaign made major strides in opening up more lateral communications in addition to the traditional center-edge messaging. Rich interactive communications between the center and the edge are absolutely necessary, and most organizations have not yet made the changes needed to integrate incoming communications from the edge into the workings of headquarters operations. But we believe that layering the ability to allow groups at the edge to communicate more easily with each other will create a much stronger, more resilient, more agile network of cells than a collection of center-edge organizations.

In creating this site, the primary resource we plan to draw on is you, our users. We’re all familiar with how easy it can be to spend hours doing research on the net, with all those attractive byways only a click away. We believe that if you will act as the site’s eyes and ears, we will gain quicker access to more interesting material, without the overhead of a large research staff. We are excited about the opportunity to participate in the growth of this online learning community—we teach you, and you teach us.

But most importantly of all, we are here to help. Every day, we will be here for you, to help and guide you when you have problems, and to learn from your own organizing efforts, whether you have setbacks or successes.

We look forward to working with you to build a site that will see the birth of democracy cells across the country, linking together to build and strengthen the organizations we need to win back control of our country for the people.